No credit card required
Browse credit cards from a variety of issuers to see if there's a better card for you.
Apologies if this isn't where my question belongs. If it belongs elsewhere, please move it accordingly. Thanks.
Since I am new here and just now starting to investigate why my score is what it is, I don't have a firm understanding of why I am seeing what I am seeing. I signed up for the myFICO 3B quarterly service today. It's not that I am really interested in a long term subscription but more interested in my current F8 scores and being able to compare EQ/EX/TU report info in a more side by side and easy to read fashion. I've determined that there are some differences between reports that have little affect on my scores. When I called in to verify for the 3B service this morning, I answered the employment question wrong twice since all 3 reports are apparently listing a different employer. This is exactly the reason I signed up for the service- to more easily figure out what needs to be changed for my reports to be consistent across agencies.
Here is a difference that i've noticed that I believe is making a difference with my lower EX8 score. Before going any further, I do understand that it isn't unusual to see different F8 scores from different agencies although I did expect them to be closer to each other than this. My scores are shown from this mornings 3B pull- EQ8= 809, TU8= 801, and EX8= 758. My question is about the EX8 score. I am questioning why there is 43+ point difference. When looking at my reports, and I suspect this is the reason for the difference, EX shows AAoA= 4yr 3mths and AoOA= 13yr 9mths while both EQ and TU both are showing as AAoA= 7yr 1mth and AoOA= 21yr 4mth. I also show 2x inquiries on Experian that don't show for TU or EQ and the age of the inquiries are a few days over 11 months old.
The credit file age discrepancy appears to be caused by a mortgage that was paid off in late 2012 that shows data on both the EQ and TU reports but no data shows in the EX report for this closed mortgage. This has obviously caused a much less aged credit file with EX which I would think might explain the point difference. Is there a solution to this or is this just the way it is? Why is this the case? If this is the reason for the difference in score, should I expect the data for my mortgage to disappear from the other credit agencies and cause drops in those scores as well?
Any insight to help me understand this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Having a closed account fall off one bureau before the others isn't uncommon. Positive accounts will stay on your reports for up to 10 years, but they don't always last that long. Since each bureau maintains their own files, a closed account can fall off one early while still being on the others. Unfortunately, there's no way to get an old closed accont back on your report. Once it's gone, it's gone.
Similarly, most lenders do not pull from all three bureaus at once, so each bureau will have a different number of inquiries depending on which ones your lenders hit up.
The good news is that 758 is not a bad score. If you want to learn more about FICO8 and what you can do to optimize your profile, check out @Anonymous 's scoring primer . Utilization and AZEO are two things you can look at to possibly bump up your score right now w/o making any other changes to your profile.






Thank you very much for the explanation Slabenstein.
So if I am understanding correctly, all closed accounts will drop off of credit reports in a maximum of 10 years?
At least I can take comfort in hopefully having 2 more years to age the other reports before the inevitable drop. This also helps clear up some confusion I had about the whole "don't close your oldest accounts" mantra.
I know that 758 won't cripple me from a credit standpoint so it's hardly a crisis but I was interested in learning why the variable existed between my scores. In my current financial position, I would much rather have no house payment than the longer aged accounts. I suppose I might not feel quite the same way if I had large amounts of financial obligations.
Finances over FICOs, definitely. That's another thing you'll probably hear a lot around here. And, yeah, generally they shouldn't stay longer than 10 years, tho I think there have been reports of an account occassionally remaining longer.






The Primer link created by @Anonymous referenced above will probably answer most of your questions. I don't recall but I think there is room to grow or gain points from your AAoA on EX and may be a reason for some variance. I'm far removed from that max score potentional age but think the link references the maximum scoring benefit gained from AAoA.
And as @Slabenstein stated, "Finances over Scores". Not having that financial obligation is a better position for most if not all over FICO scores, particularly if you don't need MTG financing which is a different score model from FICO 8's.
Since FICO 8's seems to be what you're interested in now I'll let others or @AllZero tell you how to obtain those scores at a lesser expense. When needing to review all score models, in my opinion I think MyFICO is the best since it provides so much more information that it's recent only competitor to provide all scores through Credit.com's new paid service.
Thank you for the response Trudy.
I will definitely take a look at the Primer link. My sub to 3B quarterly was simply to get as much info to work with in a quick manner while trying to avoid options that i've read can be a time consuming nightmare to cancel. The extra few bucks to avoid these headaches is always worth it to me. I have no intention of taking out another mortgage or financing a vehicle. I don't need a 2nd home and prefer to pay cash on a nicely depreciated lightly used car when needed. I have grown very accustomed to having a low overhead after bleeding finacially for far too long.
Having said this, the 3B sub gave me a much bigger picture of the scores that I currently hold, even though I have no real need to know those scores. I will be discontinuing with the 3B sub before needing to pay for another month- it has served its purpose. My AmEx card gives me Experian FICO 08 scores and data. I can monitor EX from now on through AmEx and have TU access with one of my other cards. I also have the free Equifax website option with what I assume is a Vantage 3 score but it allows me access to my report. This should pretty much cover my future needs I suspect.
Thanks for taking the time to respond @Anonymous .
I've had limited credit for awhile but never really bothered to learn much about it. This forum and its members have been immensely helpful in halping me get a handle on it. Thank you.
@SirMilo wrote:Thank you for the response Trudy.
I will definitely take a look at the Primer link. My sub to 3B quarterly was simply to get as much info to work with in a quick manner while trying to avoid options that i've read can be a time consuming nightmare to cancel. The extra few bucks to avoid these headaches is always worth it to me. I have no intention of taking out another mortgage or financing a vehicle. I don't need a 2nd home and prefer to pay cash on a nicely depreciated lightly used car when needed. I have grown very accustomed to having a low overhead after bleeding finacially for far too long.
Having said this, the 3B sub gave me a much bigger picture of the scores that I currently hold, even though I have no real need to know those scores. I will be discontinuing with the 3B sub before needing to pay for another month- it has served its purpose. My AmEx card gives me Experian FICO 08 scores and data. I can monitor EX from now on through AmEx and have TU access with one of my other cards. I also have the free Equifax website option with what I assume is a Vantage 3 score but it allows me access to my report. This should pretty much cover my future needs I suspect.
There are only two real reasons to pay for scores as a consumer, imo. The first is if you have a mortgage or other major borrowing coming up and need to know exactly where you stand. The second is if you're trying to understand a score model and want to track changes. Otherwise free reports and FICOs that come with cards and different sites are enough to keep tabs.






Well said @Slabenstein
And my pleasure @SirMilo. But if you'll just get a free Credit Karma account, you can keep an eye on all your Equifax and TransUnion data, updated every 7 days, just do not rely on the score for anything.